of your sex, is very apt to lead you into a dissipated state of life, that deceives you, under the appearance of innocent pleasure; but which in reality wastes your spirits, impairs your besta, weakens all the superior faculties of your minds, and citen sullies your reputations. Religion, by checking this dissi pation, and rage for pleasure, enables you to draw more happiness, even from those very sources of amusement, which, when too frequently applied to, are often productive of satiety and disgust.

Religion is rather a matter of sentiment than reasoning. The important and interesting articles of faith are sufficiently plain. Fix your attention on these, and do not meddle with controversy. If you get into that, you plunge into a chaos, from which you will never be able to extricate yourselves. It spoils the temper, and, I suspect, has no good effect on the heart.

*

Avoid all books, and all conversation, that tend to shake your faith on those great points of religion, which should serve to regulate your conduct, and on which your hopes of future and eternal happi ness depend.

Never indulge yourselves in ridicule on religious subjects; nor give countenance to it in others, by seeming diverted with what they say. This, to people of good breeding, will be a sufficient check.

I wish you to go no farther than the Scriptures for your religious opinions. Embrace those you find clearly revealed. Never perpiex yourselves about such as you do not understand, but treat them with silent and becoming reverence I would advise you to read only such religious books as are addressed to the heart; such as inspire pious and devout affections; such as are proper to direct you in your conduct;-and not such as tend to entangle you in the endless maze of opinions and systems.

Be punctual in the stated performance of your private devotions, morning and evening.-If you have any sensibility or imagination, this will esta blish such an intercourse between you and the Supreme Being, as will be of infinite consequence

to you in life. It will communicate au habitual cheerfulness to your tempers, give a firmness and steadiness to your virtue, and enable you to go through all the vicissitudes of human life with propriety and dignity.

I wish you to be regular in your attendance on public worship, and in receiving the communion. Allow nothing to interrupt your public or private devotions, except the performance of some active duty in life, to which they should always give place. -In your behaviour at public worship, observe an exemplary attention and gravity.

That extreme strictness which I recommend to you in these duties, will be considered by many of your acquaintance as a superstitious attachinent to forms; but in the advices I give you on this and other subjects, I have an eye to the spirit and manners of the age. There is a levity and dissi pation in the present manners, a coldness and listlessness in whatever relates to religion, which cannot fail to infect you, unless you purposely cultivate in your minds a contrary bias, and make the devotional taste habitual.

reli

Avoid all grimace and ostentation in your gious duties. They are the usual cloaks of hypocrisy; at least, they shew a weak and vain

mind.

Do not make Religion a subject of common conversation in mixed companies. When it is introduced, rather seem to decline it. At the same time, never suffer any person to insult you by any foolish ribaldry on your religious opinions; but shew the same resentment you would naturally do on being offered any other personal insult. But the surest way to avoid this, is by a modest reserve on the subject, and by using no freedom with others about their religious sentiments.

Cultivate an enlarged charity for all mankind, however they may differ from you in their religious opinions. That difference may probably arise from causes in which you had no share, and from which

you can derive no merit.

Shew your regard to Religion, by a distinguish. ing respect to all its ministers, of whatever persuasion, who do not by their lives dishonour their profession: but never allow them the direction of your consciences, lest they taint you with the narrow spirit of their party.

The best effect of your religion will be a diffusive humanity to all in distress.-Set apart a certain proportion of your income as sacred to charitable purposes. But in this, as well as in the practice of every other duty, carefully avoid ostentation. Vanity is always defeating her own purposes. Fame is one of the natural rewards of virtue: do not pursue her, and she will follow you.

Do not confine your charity to giving money. You may have many opportunities of shewing a tender and compassionate spirit where your money is not wanted. There is a false and unnatural refinement in sensibility which makes some people shun the sight of every object in distress. Never indulge this, especially where your friends or acquaintances are concerned. Let the days of their misfortunes, when the world forgets or avoids them, be the season for you to exercise your humanity and friendship. The sight of human misery softens the heart, and makes it better; it checks the pride of health and prosperity; and the distress it occasions, is amply compensated by the consciousness of doing your duty, and by the secret endearment which nature has annexed to all our sympathetic

Borrows.

Women are greatly deceived, when they think they recommend themselves to our sex by their indifference about religion. Even those men who are themselves unbelievers, dislike infidelity in you. Every man who knows human nature, connects a religious taste in your sex with softness and sensibility of heart; at least, we always cousider the want of it as a proof of that hard and masculine spirit, which, of all your faults, we dislike the most. Besides, men consider your religion as one of their principal securities for that female virtu☛

in which they are most interested. If a gentleman pretend an attachment to any of you, and endeavour to shake your religious principles, be assured he is either a fool, or has designs on you which he dares not openly avow.

You will probably wonder at my having educa ted you in a church different from my own. The reason was plainly this: I looked on the differences between our churches to be of no real importance, and that a preference of one to the other was a mere matter of taste. Your mother was educated. in the church of England, and had an attachment to it; and I had a prejudice in favour of every thing she liked. It never was her desire that you should be baptized by a clergyman of the church of England, or be educated in that church: on the contrary, the delicacy of her regard to the sinallest circumstance that could affect me in the eye of the world, made her auxiously insist it might be other wise. But I could not yield to her in that kind of generosity. When I lost her, 1 became still more determined to educate you in that church, as I feel a secret pleasure in doing every thing that appears to me to express my affection and veneration for her memory.I, draw but a very faint and imperfect picture of what your mother was, while I endeavour to point out what you should be*.

The reader will remember, that such observations as respect equally both the sexes, are all along as much as Rossible avoided.

CONDUCT AND BEHAVIOUR.

ONE of the chief beauties in a female character,

is that modest rescrce, that retiring delicacy, which avoids the public eye, and is disconcerted even at the gaze of admiration.-I do not wish you to be insensible to applause; if you were, you must become, if not worse, at least less amiable women. But you may be dazzled by that admiration, which yet rejoices your hearts.

When a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most powerful charm of beauty. That extreme sensibility which it indicates, may be a weakness and incumbrance in our sex, as I have too often felt; but in yours it is peculiarly engaging. Pedants, who think themselves philosophers, ask, why a woman should blush when she is conscions of no crime? It is a sufficient answer, that Nature has made you to blush when you are guilty of no fault, and has forced us to love you because you do soBlushing is so far from being necessarily an attendant on guilt, that it is the usual companion of innocence.

This modesty, which I think so essential in your sex, will naturally dispose you to be rather silent in company, especially in a large one.-People of sense and discernment will never mistake such si lence for dulness. One may take a share in conver sation without uttering a syllable. The expression in the countenance shews it; and this never escapes an observing eye.

I should be glad that you had an easy dignity in your behaviour at public places; but not that confident ease, that unabashed countenance, which seems to set the company at defiance.-If, while a gentleman is speaking to you, one of superior rank addresses you, do not let your eager attention and